The Under-18's suffered a 4-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday morning.
The first game after a short break in the fixture schedule was a chance for some of the youngsters to stake an early claim for a place in the first round of the F.A Youth Cup which begins this week.
Two freak goals and two defensive errors were the story of Saints' defeat however, which put Dave Puckett's side on the back foot.
Injuries to strikers Tony Garrod and Sam Hoskins meant that the Youth Team Coach started with a 4-4-2 formation against the Eagles.
A competitive opening 25 minutes of play was undone by a pass straight to a Palace forward who made no mistake as he beat Jack Dovey in the Saints goal.
Moments later it was 2-0 as the visitors capitalised on another shortfall at the back and in a one-on-one situation the advantage was doubled.
To make matters worse, just before half time an innocuous looking shot from the edge of the area ricocheted into the air and flew into the net for Palace's third.
The fourth for the visitors came in the second period in similar fashion when a shot across the box hit the unfortunate Aarran Racine which changed the flight of the ball and went past a wrong footed Dovey.
The hosts then switched to a 4-3-3 formation with the returning Andy Robinson slotting into a defensive midfield role to give the other midfielders a license to get forward.
Winger Garyn Preen benefited from that move as he cut in form the left hand side and drilled a low shot into the bottom corner to reduce the arrears.
Puckett felt that his team showed character once more, as he looked for the positives to take from the match, but admitted that the youngsters had given themselves too much work to do.
"Conceding the first two goals in the way that we did, immediately fired Palace up and gave us another mountain to climb," he said. "We didn't get enough crosses or shots in and we gifted them a way into the game.
"The plus points I will take from this game are a couple of individual performances from first team scholars," he added. "Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was probably the best player on the park and Andy Robinson came back into the side and showed his strength which allowed other players to play their game."
Saints Under-18's: Dovey, Argent, Racine (Martin 75), Harper, Reeves, Preen, Oxlade-Chamberlain, McNish, Holder-Spooner, Keegan (Robinson 60), McLean (Isgrove 75).
